Name: Nancy Baym
Hometown: Urbana, Illinois
Job: Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research
Years at Microsoft: 2
Favorite restaurant in the Boston area: That’s a hard call! I quite like Helmand in Cambridge and Sichuan Gourmet in Brookline.
Last thing you Binged: I was looking for articles about the new album by the Spanish singer-songwriter Nacho Vegas.
Something cool you’ve worked on recently: I’ve been interviewing musicians about their relationships with audiences. I think that counts as cool!
What inspires you about technology? I’m fascinated by the ways that it opens possibilities for people to interact with one another and the ways people manage to overcome the obstacles technologies pose in order to connect in meaningful ways. Perhaps that is what inspires me about people more than about technology.
What problem would you like to see technology solve? I am not a big believer in technology as a solution, but I think it can help *people* solve problems, and in that regard I would sure like to see us use technology to connect across boundaries and lessen the racism, sexism, and all the other –isms that keep us apart and lead to hatred and violence.
My website, renewed, refreshed, packed with links to enormous swaths of my papers and talks http://t.co/KP0vkJAbph (in case you missed it)
— Nancy Baym (@nancybaym) May 14, 2014